Thumper setup

[evilpsych]

Here is a proposed thumper setup I have planned based on the equipment i have on hand - a 7.75gal pony keg, and a 15.5g keg. Both have 2 1" half couplers welded on them. How does this look in terms of sizing? all tubing is 1" save the input into the thumper, which will be a capped 3/4" tube with holes drilled in it.

[Tater]

If i had the 1 in Id use it for everything and I wouldn't put a cap on it and would probably cut slots instead of drilling holes That way It couldn't stop up if ya have pulpy fruits/mash in thumper.But I'm sure some would do it different.

[Dnderhead]

place a elbow facing down, then if something gits in, it will jest come out the end. and the slots are good.

[evilpsych]

place a elbow facing down, then if something gits in, it will jest come out the end. and the slots are good.

I'll try that down the road.. however, I don't distill on the grain, or use fruit pulps - filtered wash only. The design of this is meant to build its own low wines kinda like what hack came up with in his doubler/thumper ideer thread

[HookLine]

place a elbow facing down, then if something gits in, it will jest come out the end. and the slots are good.

Good idea.

[Hack]

Try to get your inlet set as close to the bottom as possible. On mine it comes up through the bottom then turns and runs parallel to the bottom. This makes the amount needed to cover the inlet as minimal as possible and once the inlet is covered you can shut off the liebig and things should take care of themselves. On my setup the thumper, which is a twenty quart stock pot, only fills about two inches.

I'm interested to hear how the liebig to fill it works. I think it will work fine. I considerd that with mine, but didn't wan't to mess with a pump.

I'm also interested to hear how much yours fills compared to mine, since you'll have a 3/4" inlet and mine has a 3/8" inlet. Next upgrade for mine is increasing the inlet and condenser size from 3/8" to 1/2" or 5/8".

I'll post some pics of my setup. I've been meaning to and finally got ahold of a camera again.

[CoopsOz]

What's the purpose of the first condenser? The thumper will never boil if the first pass likker that fills it is cool. Or are you planning on using a element in the thumper as well? Maybe I have missed something.

[Tater]

What's the purpose of the first condenser? The thumper will never boil if the first pass likker that fills it is cool. Or are you planning on using a element in the thumper as well? Maybe I have missed something.

They are making self filling thumpers.

[evilpsych]

yeah. the idea is to only use the first condensor until it fills the thumper with low wines, then stop pumping though that condensor - the low wines will then heat up and boil, and the second condensor will produce the spirit.

[CoopsOz]

Roger, knew I missed something.

[evilpsych]

AND SHE's ALIIIIVVVEEE!!!


Wow. the thumper really rocked and 'thumped' and made all sorts of weird noise until it got to operating temp.. then a nice gentle rocking and bubbling.. Ran a vinegar clean through first, then a cleaning 'run' that i'll prolly use as motor cleaner or bbq starter..

I'm hooked on a thumper. I probably will go all 1" between the boiler and thumper soon.. Running this requires the intermediate liebig to be drained of all liquid once it reaches running temps, or it will thermo-siphon like a lusty female...

The surging is something else i'll have to get used to.. on my second gallon of this charge already.

[evilpsych]

ok. Just shut her down for the night, and some keen observations.. the heads were definitely compressed at the beginning - VERY noticeable and should be easier to make cuts now. This does jive with pint's graphed log from his doubler.. and the ABV did drop off rather quickly when the tails started to come over Within 30-40 minutes, the ABV had dropped from 110-120 to under 50.. I collected all told a good 10L of spirit, and will take it a little slower with the next run when i have more time. I shut her down when it was starting to get around 25% ABV on the Alcometer.

Oh, I started with about 12-13g in the boiler, and 1 gallon of plain water with a pound of baking soda added to it

[Hack]

Nice looking setup.

I'm curious about the surging. What's surging?

[evilpsych]

vapor contraction upon hitting the cooler fluid in the thumper... Made loud banging noises until it got warmed up.. Once it warmed up the vapor bubbled through as expected . This first run I didn't try to self fill as it was a cleaning/learning run. I will disassemble completely tomorrow to make some adjustments to fittings and fix a few leaks. I got to use my new sanke adapters too and one needs tuning for best sealing. Even though it was a cleaning run, the few drops I decided to taste more than halfway through the hearts were extremely clean and light.... Probably due to the baking soda.

[Trapperjones]

All my stills have thumpers! I couldn't imagine not running one! I don't own a reflux still and have never seen anything but a potstill and thumper setup in person ever and I've seen over 100 stills! The thumper allows you to save time by only having to distill once. Also if you've got the boiler too full it serves as a slop box and keeps crap out of the final product. The surging I feel is a bonus as it allows you to concentrate and make your cuts better. Plus to think of all the energy wasted in heating the wash....it's a wise choice to use the heat to power the thumper and get another redistillation. My thumper is packed full of copper scouring pads. I love deathwish'd wheat germ recipe and use just a potstill and thumper packed full of copper setup. I collect just after the foreshots/heads surge and run it down to about 45%. I'll age this on freshly charred oak sawdust for about an hour double filter using coffee filters then bottle and enjoy. Everyone needs a thumper....why make more work when it's easier to let it do the work? Thump on!

[Hack]

vapor contraction upon hitting the cooler fluid in the thumper... Made loud banging noises until it got warmed up.. Once it warmed up the vapor bubbled through as expected . This first run I didn't try to self fill as it was a cleaning/learning run. I will disassemble completely tomorrow to make some adjustments to fittings and fix a few leaks. I got to use my new sanke adapters too and one needs tuning for best sealing. Even though it was a cleaning run, the few drops I decided to taste more than halfway through the hearts were extremely clean and light.... Probably due to the baking soda.

I see. I guess my thumper is the weird one. It doesn't thump like that. I need to get some pics of mine put up for comparison.

[evilpsych]

well.. part of the banging i'm sure is the 'safety' cap i have on the end of the 'bubble lance' in my design The lance has slits and holes drilled in it every 1/4" or so on the underside, and a cap on the end of the pipe that's not solder on. It's just pressure crimped on lightly (I can still remove it by hand, but it's a little harder than non crimped) I run filtered washes, so solids clogging shouldnt be an issue. The banging i think is the cap sliding down a bit, then when the vapor collapses, getting sucked back hard against the pipe. But I could be wrong. Others with thumpers have mentioned similar 'scary moments' with their thumpers on startup..

[ER70S-2]

Nice looking set up there Evil.
I have a question, when doing just the water or clean out run did you try filling the thumper all the way to the top to see how it ran? I'm curious for my own design as to how much of a difference this makes. I'm thinking the more liquid in the thumper the more pressure will be created in the still itself. I know that your thumper will probably never fill all the way, but just looking at it from a worst case scenario, how much pressure do you think would build up in your keg?
I recently built a 30L thumper for my 60L keg and tried a water run on it this evening. I filled the thumper with water to just cover the inlet tube. I filled the keg approximately 1/4 full. The still heated up and the thumper was working beautiful. Then I slowly started to fill the thumper with water to see what would happen. As it filled the thumper changed sounds alot, peering inside with a flashlight I could see the bubbles becoming less frequent. It was becoming more difficult to push the vapour throught the inlet. I'm guessing this was because of the water pressure in the thumper pushing back against the vapour in the inlet tube. Once I topped off the thumper the bubbles stopped all together briefly. I shut the heat off and thought maybe I had better not continue this test until I put a pressure gauge on the still to see what sort of pressure is building up inside.
Any thoughts on this from your own experience?
Regards
Er70S-2

[evilpsych]

Wow! That's a lot to digest! Well I haven't done a pressure test... Other than the obvious- "well, it's not leaking vapor from any fitting, and the thumper is still 'thumping' and booze is coming out of the condensor" test...
One thing that I have noticed is that a triclover clamp on the thumper inlet would make dissassembly for cleaning and positioning to attach to the boiler easier... I still have not yet tried the self filling feature of the setup just yet.. I've only got 4 thumper runs under my belt currently so I'm still figuring this out mysself... One note that I found interesting, I can run the setup at the full 5500 watts and it doesn't overwhelm my condensor, running out the tails for feints took no time at all considering how quickly the proof dropped off
More later on my iPhone at the moment

[Hack]

I've had my five gallon thumper filled with three gallons of water before. There were no real problems other than it significantly lowered the proof of my final product.

If your thumper is a traditional design with the inlet tube coming in the top and traveling down through the liquid, the more liquid you add, the more of that tube you cover, and the more it will act like a condenser, which could reduce the bubbles.

You might try filling your thumper to the top and just seeing if you can blow through the inlet yourself. If you can, chances are you aren't creating too much pressure in your still.

[ER70S-2]

Sorry for the long post on your thread Evil, it is a nice set up you have there though, glad to see it's working well for you.
Hack, Thanks, I'll try that. I did notice that it would still work until I filled the last 2" or so and then it was becoming difficult for it to push the vapour through. I will start a separate thread about this if need be.
Regards
Er70S-2

[evilpsych]

I've had my five gallon thumper filled with three gallons of water before. There were no real problems other than it significantly lowered the proof of my final product.

Roughly what was the proof over the run? I've noticed on the water runs, it stays around 70-75% max

[Hack]

If I remember right, after cuts that run was around 100 proof after cuts. I only did it that way once while I was figuring out how I liked to run my thumper. Along with dropping the proof, it also really stripped out the flavor.

[evilpsych]

If I remember right, after cuts that run was around 100 proof after cuts. I only did it that way once while I was figuring out how I liked to run my thumper. Along with dropping the proof, it also really stripped out the flavor.

dang. After making my initial cuts, it stayed around 145 proof for almost 2 gallons before dropping off. Are you adding salt to your thumper? That can help boost the proof and help keep some things IN the thumper you want to stay there.

[Hack]

I thought you were talking about the run where I added all that water. Normally, I get 140 proof or so on UJSM. If I add heads and tails from the previous run I get 150 proof.

[evilpsych]

well i managed to puke my thumper the other day. that was some quick shutdown i tell ya. I believe i had it overfilled a little with high wines and some water, along with trying to run it too slow. my thumper needs to be run what i would think was fast for a spirit run - it's a little slower than a stripping run honestly. Once I drained the 7.5gallon thumper down to around 3.5-4gallons, it ran much nicer, I put what i drained out along with everything i'd collected so far back into the boiler - no sense wasting booze.